Glenesk Distillery
Hillside
Montrose  Angus DD10 9EP 

Owner: Diageo

Creation date: 1879

The plant was originally a flax mill. It is situated near Montrose, on the East Coast of Scotland. When the distillery was founded, it was called Highland Esk. The distillery changed its name several times before closing definitively in 1985. The successive names of the distillery are: North Esk (1899), Montrose distillery (1938), Hillside distillery (1964) and finally Glenesk in 1980, a few years before closing. 
Round the time of World War II, the distillery has been altered to produce grain whisky, but in the early 1960's, it became a malt distillery again.
In 1968, the owners of the distillery started malting in malting drums. Nowadays Glenesk is renowned as an important malting plant, owned by Pauls, one of the major actors in Scottish maltings. 
The distilling licence has been cancelled in 1992.
Glenesk whisky was an important part of the VAT69 blend. 

Bottles

Glenugie distillery
Peterhead

Owner: Long John (Whitbread) (when demolished)

Creation year: 1830

The distillery was founded in 1830 and the production started in 1837.
In 1873, the distillery has been turned into a brewery, and it has been closed between 1925 and 1937.
The distillery has been reopened in 1937 by Seagar Evans & Co, before being bought by Long John International in 1970. Long John was absorbed by Whitbread in 1975. A few years later, Whitbread ceased its distillers activities, and the distillery has been dismantled in 1983..

Bottles

Royal Lochnagar Distillery
Crathie
Aberdeenshire AB35 5TB

Owner: Diageo

Creation year:  1823

The area in the North of the River Dee was one of the most popular places for moonshine distillery. After the promulgation of the Excise Act, James Robertson was one of the first to apply for a licence to run a legal distillery. He owned a small distillery in Glen Feardan, and the others moonshine distillers considered him as a traitor and set fire to his business.
After this fire, James Robertson began the construction of a new distillery, named Lochnagar.
He was really unlucky, and a new mysterious fire started on 12 May 1841, putting him of and James left definitely the whisky producers world.
Four years later, John Begg built a new distillery South of the Dee, and called it New Lochnagar.
The New Lochnagar distillery is close to the Balmoral castle, summer residence of the Royal family who just acquired this property. John Begg wrote a letter to the private secretary of the royal family, G.E. Anson to announce them the distillery was operational. The reaction of the Court came very soon. The very next day, Queen Victoria and her husband Albert visited the new distillery. They were very impressed by it, and allowed John Begg to rename the distillery "Royal Lochnagar", and make him official supplier of the court.
This had an immediate effect on the sale price of the whisky.
In the 1880's, nearly all the malt production was used in the famous VAT69 blend, by currently most of the malt is marketed as single malt.
The distillery joined the D.C.L. (Distillers Company Ltd.) in 1916 and became part of Guinness in 1986. Guinness merged with Gran Metropolitan to become the UDV group (United Distillers and Vintners - Diageo).
Completely renewed in 1967, the distillery preserved its traditional character.

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Fettercairn Distillery
Fettercairn
Aberdeenshire
AB30 1YB
+44 1561 340 244

Owner: Whyte & Mackay

Année de création: 1825

 Bottles

North Port Distillery
Brechin,
Angus DD9 6BE

Owner: Diageo

Creation year: 1820

Situated North of the royal burgh Brechin, the North Port distillery has been build in 1820 by a family of bankers and farmers. It remained a family distillery until its buying over by the D.C.L. (Distillers Company Ltd.) in 1922.
Distillery was closed in 1983 and demolished.
Its single malt remains available at some independent bottlers, of officially in the range "Rare Malts" under the name North Port Brechin.

Bottles

Photo: Ian Mc Ilwain, broombankpublishing.com

Lochside Distillery
Montrose
Angus DD10 9AD

Owner: Pernod Ricard

Creation year: 1957

The Lochside distillery has been founded by the Mac Nab distillers company on the site of an old brewery (Deuchars & Sons) settled in the town of Montrose in 1957.
The distillery was producing malt and grain whisky up to the early 1970's. The distillery was sold to the Spanish group Domecq who immediately stopped the grain whisky production.
The company Allied Lyons bought the distillery in 1994, and it was mothballed soon after this.
The distillery has been demolished in 2005 and replaced by a garden cent er. The locals thought it would have been better to turn it into a museum about the Distillery`s history...

Bottles

Glenury Royal Distillery
Broomhill Road, Stonehaven
Kincardineshire AB39 2PY

Owner: Diageo

Creation date: 1825

The distillery was founded in 1824 by Captain Robert Barclay and had to face hard times from the very beginning. A few weeks after starting production, a fire destroyed the kiln, parts of the grain loft, malting floors and stocks of barley and malt. This happened on 20th op April 1825. Another disaster happened two weeks later, when a distillery worker, James Clark fell into the boiler and did not survive. The whole energy of the founder of the distillery, Robert Barclay was needed for the distillery to continue its activities. And Robert was an energic man indeed. He was the first man to run 1000 miles in 1000 hours and was inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of fame for this exploit. The fact king William IV authorized the distillery to add "Royal" to its name in 1835 is also due to the personality of Robert Barclay. 
Robert died in 1854 and the distillery was put up for auction 3 or 4 years later. It was acquired by William Richie, and his family remained owner of it until 1936. It is however not really clear who was the actual owner, as it was sold in 1936 by Lord Stonehaven after a decade without production, form 1928 to 1937. Probably the Richies were leasing it from him. 
The Glenury Distillery Company bought the distillery. Joseph William Hobbs was an important member of the company, and 2 years later, the distillery was transfered to another group, belowing to the same Mr Hobbs: the "Associated Scottish Distillers (ASD)" . In 1940, ASD was acquired by American National Distilleries, and later, in 1953 the latter was acquired by DCL which would later become Diageo.
Important refurbishing works were done in 1965. The number of stills was doubled, from 2 to 4.
Malting production at the distillery was stopped in 1968 and the distillery was mothballed on 31th May 1985. The decision to cease definitely production of whisky was taken in 1992, and the buildings were sold to an estate company. The building was partly rebuild in appartments.
The whisky from that distillery is rare now, and is still available at some independent bottlers. The whisky of Glenury was also sold in the Rare Malt series, and DIageo marketed recently a 36 years old "Special Release". 

Bottles

Glen Garioch Distillery
Old Meldrum,
Aberdeenshire AB51 0ES
+44 1651 872 706

Owner: Morrison Bowmore Distillers Ltd

Creation date: 1797

According to an article in "The Aberdeen Journal", the first distillation at Glen Garioch should have happened as soon as 1785. 
However, other sources say that the distillery was build in 1798. The founder is Thomas Simpson who kept the distillery for 30 years, before selling it to Ingram, Lamb & Co who kept Glen Garioch from 1827 until 1834...

John Manson acquired it in 1837. The same John Manson was the owner of the Strathmeldrum distillery, which has disappeared in the meanwhile. The distillery remained his property until he sold it in 1884 to J.G. Thomson & Co, whose manager William Sanderson was the creator of Vat69. In those days, the malt from Glen Garioch was part of VAT69.

Recent research (led by Andrew Jones in 2004 for the distillery) state that the birth of the distillery was in 1794, and further pretend that the builders of the distillery were Alexander and John Manson. Where is the truth...? Historic research about more than 200 years ole facts are rather difficult to conduct, and results are ofteh led by historical interpretations...
J.G. Thomas worked together with Booth's Distilleries Ltd from 1933, and both were taken over by SMD in 1937. SMD, a subsidiary company of DCL closed Glen Garioch in 1968, together with Oban and Glenlochy.
The distillery reopened after its acquisition by Stanley P. Morrison, who decided to buy a famous distillery in each of the Scotch whisky production areas.
Alteration works occurred in 1971 and the distillery doubled the number of its stills. Stanley P. Morisson became Morisson Bowmore in 1982. The group became later subsidiary for 100% of the Japanese Suntory. The group decided to close Glen Garioch in 1994 and to sell it.
As they could find no buyer, and because of the growing demand on the market, they reopened the distillery in 1997.
The major part of the production is used in the blends of the Morisson Bowmore company, like Rob Roy.

Bottles

Glencadam Distillery
Brechin, Angus
DD9 7PS
+44 1358 622 217

Owner: Angus Dundee Distillers

Creation date: 1825

The Glencadam distillery has been founded in 1825 near the royal burgh Brechin by George Copper. Two years later it was sold to David Scott. In 1895, the distillery has been taken over by the Edimbourg blender Gilmour Thomson and Co.
In the early 1900's, the Glencadam malt was part of the "Gilmour Thomson's Royal", one of the favourite whiskies of King Edward VII.
In 1954 the distillery has been bought and modernised by Hiram Walker and Son through its daughter society Ballantine's who use the whisky in their blends.
Hiram Walker became part of Allied Lyons in 1987. The latter merged with Pedro Domecq in 1994 to become Allied Domecq Limited. 
In May 2003, the distillery became property of Angus Dundee Distillers.
Almost all the production is used in the Ballantine's blends: Ballantine and Stewart's Cream of the Barley Blends.

Bottles